At the time of writing, it seems very likely that the Mtgox Bitcoin exchange has stopped trading, and most likely will not resume again soon. (Here’ssomeevidence).

We were using Mtgox for our prices, because when we added BTC as a market in September 2013, at that time it was the biggest bitcoin exchange in the world. Fortunately we have prepared for this event and this post explains how we’ll handle the situation.

Zero Risk

As always, our users faced absolutely no risk – since not one of them has ever paid or invested a penny to use Spark Profit. That’s why we call it “Day-trading with no downside” and strongly recommend anyone interested in trading to start with Spark Profit first. There are all sorts of very real risks of personal loss in the financial markets.

Your existing BTC predictions will be stopped

All bitcoin predictions will be stopped before the end of the week.

The future of Bitcoin

Bitcoins are far from dead. Other exchanges, without the technical and operational problems that Mtgox had, are still operating fine. We do not like to speculate on any price movements – that’s for you! – but the underlying technology of bitcoin is still just as revolutionary and interesting as it was last week.

We will move to a new BTC price provider on or before this weekend. At that time, the price will suddenly jump up (this is because the BTC price on other exchanges is much higher, reflecting the reduced counterparty risk of those exchanges). However, since all predictions will be stopped before then, no-one will be able to profit or lose from that one-off price jump.

At some point in the future we may choose to move to a blended BTC price, but it will be done without causing price + scoring shocks.

Any questions

As always, if you have any questions about Spark Profit, just email us at [email protected].

C’est pas mon idée!, a French-language blog about financial services innovation, wrote about our app and business model. The post also highlights some of the key differences we’ve applied that distinguish us from previous attempts to harness the wisdom of the crowds in financial predictions.

Next up to the stage is Nous.net, a company that operates a next generation, free trading simulator

“Nous ‘Spark Feed’ is a real-time financial data service that helps you understand and predict the markets. Uniquely, Spark Feed uses the intuitive and analytical capabilities of tens of thousands of real people, not software algorithms. Their predictions are segmented by proven trading skill and then quantitatively blended.”

Financial data company Nous will launch today its new real time ‘Spark Feed’ data feeds at FinovateEurope, a London trade show (11 & 12 February) that showcases cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations.

Nous is launching four different Spark Feed data feeds aimed at banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions. The data feeds range from a historical raw data only feed, to feeds which provide access to Nous’s real time forex and stock indices data, and also a slice of all its historical predictions.

The purpose of Spark Feed is to help financial institutions understand – and even predict – market price changes at multiple time scales, including much shorter ones than are served by traditional analysts.

The data driving Spark Feed is harvested from Nous’ proprietary system for collecting real time opinion, called Spark Profit, which itself was released at the end of January 2014 after extensive field testing.

Unlike other crowd sourced financial data providers, the data from Spark Profit doesn’t rely on interpreting natural language responses but instead is measuring actual trading decisions. It is therefore more predictive than crowd-sourced feeds that mine natural language data on social media platforms.

Spark Profit, an app available for phones and desktops, already has 20,000 virtual traders. It is increasing by around 3,000 new users a month at the moment, although this will accelerate. The app’s main attractions are that it is free-to-use and provides regular income for skilled traders. Many of the most consistent performers live in India, the Philippines, Pakistan and Indonesia, and had little to no previous trading experience.

Justin Short, CEO of Nous, says:

“We designed Spark Profit to be so simple and intuitive that the whole world can use it. Our best users quickly worked out how to maximize their personal returns and invented their own trading strategies to achieve that. Their collective decisions are the source of valuable data for Spark Feed, which we are delighted to be launching today to an expert audience of banks, hedge funds and other financial institutions at FinovateEurope.”

Nous was founded in 2012 by Justin Short and four other former high flying Merrill Lynch traders and technologists, who saw an opportunity to empower people around the world to discover and hone unsuspected talents in trading currencies and other liquid instruments.

FinovateEurope is a demo-based conference for innovative startups and established companies in the fields of banking and financial technology. Held in London, the event offers an insight-packed glimpse of the future of money via a fast-paced, intimate, and unique format. FinovateEurope is organized by The Finovate Group. For more information on the event or to view videos of previous demos, please visit finovate.com/europe2014